It has been 84 days, almost three months since Russia launched its offensive in Ukraine, and its army seems to be progressing very little. The Ukrainians have even pushed Russian forces behind the border and regained control of the city of Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, less than 40 kilometers from the Russian-Ukrainian border, which has been targeted since the start of the conflict.
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A video, dated Monday, May 16, shows a dozen Ukrainian soldiers gathering around a yellow and blue border marker, which they have just reinstalled. Symbolic gesture: Kharkiv was one of the initial targets of the Russian army. It is now disengaging from the region, but the image impacts and maintains the idea that the second army in the world, on paper, has been greatly overestimated.
Are Russian forces suffering setback after setback? In any case, they do not manage to progress. At the moment, in the Donbass, in eastern Ukraine, it is the return of trench warfare, a war of positions pounded on one side and the other by artillery. With, in recent days, an advantage to the Ukrainians. The Russians can’t break through. “We note a real difficulty of the Russian forces in manœwork and move forward, relates Colonel Pascal Ianni, spokesman for the Chief of the Defense Staff. I want proof of this in the failure of the crossing of the Donets River, where a priori the Russian forces lost the equivalent of a complete brigade.
It is a battle that has been documented by Ukrainians who have published several videos. The Russian troops grouped a large number of vehicles on the bank before installing a bridge to cross the river in the direction of Sievierodonetsk. “A complete brigade is of the order of 5,000 to 6,000 mensays Colonel Pascal Ianni. However, the crossing was essential to advance, and the Ukrainian gunners managed particularly well.œworked since they waited for the brigade to be amassed near the crossing point of this river to produce a fire effort. And so they neutralized almost the entire brigade.”
What is striking is that the Russian army was no more successful in this second phase of the war than in the first. Between the end of February and the beginning of April, the Russians were planning a total invasion of Ukraine by relying on large dynamic maneuvers. But it didn’t work: lack of petrol, breakdowns, lack of supply. This time, with Russian forces concentrated in the east, with easier, less stretched logistics, things don’t seem to work any better.
What are the explanations? There is one constant: the Russian army is overrated while the Ukrainian army is underrated. Half of the Ukrainian army is mobilized in the east of the country. Since 2014 and the annexation of Crimea, the latter has strengthened its positions. She had eight years to erect dams, develop the land to her advantage. Then there are explanations that relate to the respective functioning of the two forces. “Clearly, the Ukrainian army has units which are rather well trained, rather well commanded, where we see a real capacity for taking the initiative at the lowest levels, which gives great flexibility in this fightanalyzes Colonel Pascal Ianni. The second point, what we can see and what is reported to us, is that ultimately, we find the same difficulties within the Russian forces, that is to say a priori difficulties with chains of command, man capacityœtactical works since the Russian forces are unable to break through and really take the initiative.”
“We have certainly a little, even a lot, overestimated the capacity of the Russian army to carry out very large-scale maneuvers.”
Colonel Pascal Ianni, Spokesperson for the Chief of Defense Staffat franceinfo
So what will be the outcome of the war? Has Russia ever lost on the pitch? No one in French military circles ventures to answer. Caution: the challenge, in the coming weeks, the next few months, will be the ability, for the Russians as for the Ukrainians, to renew the units, to stock up on arms and ammunition. A bigger issue on the Ukrainian side because all their logistics come from the west of the country, and if the Russians manage to break the lines of support, the situation in the east will become very complicated for the Ukrainians. In the first phase of the war, it was precisely by harassing the Russian forces from behind and blocking their logistics that they forced Moscow to review and change its war plans.